Due to its enormous capacity for benefit, harm, and cost, health care is among the most tightly regulated industries in the world. But with the rise of smartphones, an explosion of direct-to-consumer mobile health applications has challenged the role of centralized gatekeepers. As interest in health apps continue to climb, national regulatory bodies have turned their attention toward strategies to protect consumers from apps that mine and sell health data, recommend unsafe practices, or simply do not work as advertised. To characterize the current state and outlook of these efforts, Essén and colleagues map the nascent landscape of national health app policies and raise several considerations for cross-border collaboration. Strategies to increase transparency, organize app marketplaces, and monitor existing apps are needed to ensure that the global wave of new digital health tools fulfills its promise to improve health at scale.

中文翻译：

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健康应用政策的跨国格局：朝着数字健康的监管共识迈进

由于其巨大的利益、伤害和成本能力，医疗保健是世界上监管最严格的行业之一。但随着智能手机的兴起，直接面向消费者的移动健康应用程序的爆炸式增长对集中式看门人的作用提出了挑战。随着对健康应用程序的兴趣不断攀升，国家监管机构已将注意力转向保护消费者免受挖掘和出售健康数据、推荐不安全做法或根本不按广告宣传的应用程序的影响。为了描述这些努力的当前状态和前景，Essén 及其同事绘制了国家健康应用政策的新兴格局，并提出了跨境合作的几个考虑因素。提高透明度、组织应用市场的策略，